I remember / je me souviens

I remember / je me souviens

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For those limbic bursts of nostalgia, invented by Proust, miniaturized by Nicholson Baker, and freeze-dried by Joe Brainard in his I remember and by Georges Perec in his Je me souviens.

But there are no fractions, the world is an integer
Like us, and like us it can neither stand wholly apart nor disappear.
When one is young it seems like a very strange and safe place,
But now that I have changed it feels merely odd, cold
And full of interest.
--John Ashbery, "A Wave"

Sometimes I sense that to put real confidence in my memory I have to get to the end of all rememberings. That seems to say that I forego remembering. And now that strikes me as an accurate description of what it is to have confidence in one's memory.
--Stanley Cavell, The Claim of Reason

Sunday, April 21, 2002

I remember the times when I was sick in bed with a slight cold or sore throat as a child of seven or eight. This was in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, usually on snowy winter days. I loved those spells of minor illness. I lay in my parents' bed covered with a thick feather comforter while a fire burned and glowed red in the wood-burning porcelain stove in the corner of the room. In the afternoon I would get a visit from my aunt Lori, the wife of Uncle Rafo, my mother's brother. She would always bring a new book and an exotic delicacy, such as a banana - sometimes even pineapple!

posted by alma 8:34 PM
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